IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/ajagec/v102y2020i2p525-547.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Food Waste as Household Production Inefficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Yu
  • Edward C. Jaenicke

Abstract

Measuring food waste at the individual household level has been nearly impossible because comprehensive, current data on uneaten food do not exist. By using food acquisition data, this article employs a new approach to estimating household‐level food waste via a stochastic production frontier model in which food waste is identified as input inefficiency. For households in our data, the average household wastes 31.9% of the food it buys, and this figure, using survey weights, translates to annual U.S. consumer‐level food waste valued at $240 billion. In addition, by accommodating heterogeneous wasting behavior, we find that healthier diets and higher income lead to more household food waste, whereas lower household food security, food‐assistance program participation, and larger household sizes are associated with less food waste.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Yu & Edward C. Jaenicke, 2020. "Estimating Food Waste as Household Production Inefficiency," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(2), pages 525-547, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:ajagec:v:102:y:2020:i:2:p:525-547
    DOI: 10.1002/ajae.12036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajae.12036
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/ajae.12036?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simoes, E.J. & Byers, T. & Coates, R.J. & Serdula, M.K. & Mokdad, A.H. & Heath, G.W., 1995. "The association between leisure-time physical activity and dietary fat in American adults," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 85(2), pages 240-244.
    2. Marc F. Bellemare & Metin Çakir & Hikaru Hanawa Peterson & Lindsey Novak & Jeta Rudi, 2017. "On the Measurement of Food Waste," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1148-1158.
    3. Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2006. "Estimation of stochastic frontier production functions with input-oriented technical efficiency," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 71-96, July.
    4. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 2008. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195183528, Decembrie.
    5. Amsler, Christine & Prokhorov, Artem & Schmidt, Peter, 2016. "Endogeneity in stochastic frontier models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 280-288.
    6. Jayson L. Lusk & Brenna Ellison, 2017. "A note on modelling household food waste behaviour," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(16), pages 1199-1202, September.
    7. Jondrow, James & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Materov, Ivan S. & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 233-238, August.
    8. William Greene, 2004. "Distinguishing between heterogeneity and inefficiency: stochastic frontier analysis of the World Health Organization's panel data on national health care systems," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(10), pages 959-980, October.
    9. Miika Linna, 1998. "Measuring hospital cost efficiency with panel data models," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(5), pages 415-427, August.
    10. Stephen F Hamilton & Timothy J Richards, 2019. "Food Policy and Household Food Waste," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(2), pages 600-614.
    11. Brenna Ellison & Jayson L Lusk, 2018. "Examining Household Food Waste Decisions: A Vignette Approach," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 613-631, December.
    12. Kutlu, Levent, 2010. "Battese-coelli estimator with endogenous regressors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 79-81, November.
    13. Mary Griffin & Jeffery Sobal & Thomas Lyson, 2009. "An analysis of a community food waste stream," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(1), pages 67-81, March.
    14. Muth, Mary K. & Karns, Shawn A. & Nielsen, Samara Joy & Buzby, Jean C. & Wells, Hodan Farah, 2011. "Consumer-Level Food Loss Estimates and Their Use in the ERS Loss- Adjusted Food Availability Data," Technical Bulletins 184307, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    15. Kevin D Hall & Juen Guo & Michael Dore & Carson C Chow, 2009. "The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(11), pages 1-6, November.
    16. Rajiv D. Banker & Ram Natarajan, 2008. "Evaluating Contextual Variables Affecting Productivity Using Data Envelopment Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 48-58, February.
    17. Antonio Alvarez & Christine Amsler & Luis Orea & Peter Schmidt, 2006. "Interpreting and Testing the Scaling Property in Models where Inefficiency Depends on Firm Characteristics," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 201-212, June.
    18. Sungho Park & Sachin Gupta, 2012. "Handling Endogenous Regressors by Joint Estimation Using Copulas," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 567-586, July.
    19. Kumbhakar, Subal C & Ghosh, Soumendra & McGuckin, J Thomas, 1991. "A Generalized Production Frontier Approach for Estimating Determinants of Inefficiency in U.S. Dairy Farms," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(3), pages 279-286, July.
    20. L. Kurkalova & A. Carriquiry, 2003. "Input- and Output-Oriented Technical Efficiency of Ukrainian Collective Farms, 1989–1992: Bayesian Analysis of a Stochastic Production Frontier Model," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 191-211, September.
    21. Stijn Reinhard & C.A. Knox Lovell & Geert Thijssen, 1999. "Econometric Estimation of Technical and Environmental Efficiency: An Application to Dutch Dairy Farms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(1), pages 44-60.
    22. Peter J. Danaher & Michael S. Smith, 2011. "Modeling Multivariate Distributions Using Copulas: Applications in Marketing," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(1), pages 4-21, 01-02.
    23. Tran, Kien C. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2015. "Endogeneity in stochastic frontier models: Copula approach without external instruments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 85-88.
    24. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    25. Danyi Qi & Brian E Roe, 2016. "Household Food Waste: Multivariate Regression and Principal Components Analyses of Awareness and Attitudes among U.S. Consumers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-19, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Orea, Luis, 2019. "The Econometric Measurement of Firms’ Efficiency," Efficiency Series Papers 2019/02, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    2. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2022. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Foundations and Advances I," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 8, pages 331-370, Springer.
    3. Mustafa U. Karakaplan & Levent Kutlu, 2019. "School district consolidation policies: endogenous cost inefficiency and saving reversals," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 1729-1768, May.
    4. Centorrino, Samuele & Pérez-Urdiales, María, 2023. "Maximum likelihood estimation of stochastic frontier models with endogeneity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 82-105.
    5. Yu, Yang & Jaenicke, Edward C., 2021. "The effect of sell-by dates on purchase volume and food waste," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    6. Guarini, Giulio & Laureti, Tiziana & Garofalo, Giuseppe, 2020. "Socio-institutional determinants of educational resource efficiency according to the capability approach: An endogenous stochastic frontier analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    7. Amsler, Christine & Prokhorov, Artem & Schmidt, Peter, 2017. "Endogenous environmental variables in stochastic frontier models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 199(2), pages 131-140.
    8. Rouven E. Haschka & Helmut Herwartz, 2022. "Endogeneity in pharmaceutical knowledge generation: An instrument‐free copula approach for Poisson frontier models," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 942-960, November.
    9. Tran, Kien C. & Tsionas, Mike G., 2016. "On the estimation of zero-inefficiency stochastic frontier models with endogenous regressors," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 19-22.
    10. Mamonov Mikhail E. & Parmeter Christopher F. & Prokhorov Artem B., 2022. "Dependence modeling in stochastic frontier analysis," Dependence Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 123-144, January.
    11. Michael Danquah and Bazoumana Ouattara, 2018. "Comparison of Stochastic Frontier Approaches for Estimating National Efficiency: An Application to Sub-Saharan African Countries," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 119-142, September.
    12. Travis A. Smith & Craig E. Landry, 2021. "Household Food Waste and Inefficiencies in Food Production," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(1), pages 4-21, January.
    13. Artem Prokhorov & Kien C. Tran & Mike G. Tsionas, 2021. "Estimation of semi- and nonparametric stochastic frontier models with endogenous regressors," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(6), pages 3043-3068, June.
    14. Antti Saastamoinen, 2015. "Heteroscedasticity Or Production Risk? A Synthetic View," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 459-478, July.
    15. Alejandro Arvelo-Martín & Juan José Díaz-Hernández & Ignacio Abásolo-Alessón, 2019. "Hospital productivity bias when not adjusting for cost heterogeneity: The case of Spain," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, June.
    16. Laureti, Tiziana & Secondi, Luca & Biggeri, Luigi, 2014. "Measuring the efficiency of teaching activities in Italian universities: An information theoretic approach," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 147-164.
    17. Tran, Kien C. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2015. "Endogeneity in stochastic frontier models: Copula approach without external instruments," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 85-88.
    18. Dolšak, Janez & Hrovatin, Nevenka & Zorić, Jelena, 2022. "Estimating the efficiency in overall energy consumption: Evidence from Slovenian household-level data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    19. Cuccia, Tiziana & Guccio, Calogero & Rizzo, Ilde, 2016. "The effects of UNESCO World Heritage List inscription on tourism destinations performance in Italian regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 494-508.
    20. Ali M. Oumer & Amin Mugera & Michael Burton & Atakelty Hailu, 2022. "Technical efficiency and firm heterogeneity in stochastic frontier models: application to smallholder maize farms in Ethiopia," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 213-241, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:ajagec:v:102:y:2020:i:2:p:525-547. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8276 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.